Showing posts with label 3D printer. Show all posts

Ground breaking hip and stem cell surgery completed using 3D-printed implant

Date:
May 16, 2014
Source:
University of Southampton
Summary:
Doctors and scientists have completed their first hip surgery with a 3D-printed implant and bone stem cell graft. The 3D printed hip, made from titanium, was designed using the patient's CT scan and CAD CAM (computer aided design and computer aided manufacturing) technology, meaning it was designed to the patient's exact specifications and measurements. The implant will provide a new socket for the ball of the femur bone to enter. Behind the implant and between the pelvis, doctors have inserted a graft containing bone stem cells.

Doctors and scientists in Southampton have completed their first hip surgery with a 3D printed implant and bone stem cell graft.
The 3D printed hip, made from titanium, was designed using the patient's CT scan and CAD CAM (computer aided design and computer aided manufacturing) technology, meaning it was designed to the patient's exact specifications and measurements.
The implant will provide a new socket for the ball of the femur bone to enter. Behind the implant and between the pelvis, doctors have inserted a graft containing bone stem cells.

Read the full article at Science Daily 
(http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140516203334.htm)
3D printer

Surgeons Practice On Brains Made On 3D Printers


By Michael Dhar, Contributing writer
Published: 11/20/2013 10:08 AM EST on LiveScience
How much practice would you want your brain surgeon to have? Probably a lot -- and the more specific that practice is to your particular brain, the better.
Now, by combining models of brains made on 3D printers and images of simulated surgery, faculty at the University of Florida (UF) are making sure their surgeons get just this kind of training.
Researchers at the university have developed a unique "mixed reality" surgery simulator that gives doctors-in-training a chance to perform real surgery techniques on 3D-printed models derived from actual patients' brains and skulls. Researchers create the models by feeding MRI and CT scans taken from previous patients into 3D printers. Simulated skin covers the printed skulls.
Read the full article at Huffingtonpost 
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/20/surgeons-brains-3d-printers-practice_n_4309621.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003)
3D printer

Can We Really 3-D Print Limbs for Amputees?




A 3-D printed prosthetic hand (John Biehler/flickr)




For the approximately 1.7 million people in the United States living without one or more of their natural limbs, the process of acquiring a prosthetic one is exhausting. It’s a drain on time and money, involving mold fitting, laser body scanning, and hours upon hours in prosthetists’ offices.

But many of the approximately 34 million people around the world living without a natural limb don’t have access to this process at all.

The motivation to research and create more advanced prosthetic limbs is not financial. The money poured into research isn’t often recouped, simply because there aren’t enough customers. And it isn’t cheap for those customers, either.

3-D printing has the potential to change this.

When Scott Summit, the founder of Bespoke Innovations, started researching 3-D prosthetics six years ago, you had to go to Los Angeles to get a 3-D body scan and it cost about $800. Summit has been working for the past six years to reach a point where fully 3-D printed prosthetics become an easy reality. Everyone I talk to about the intersection of 3-D printing and prosthetics mentions Summit as the definitive expert in the field, and he says we can, right now, create a prosthetic limb with an iPhone and a 3-D printer. “I would like to see the creation of a prosthetic limb to be a viral app that’s usable by everyone,” Summit says.


Read the full article at the Atlantic 

(http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/08/can-we-really-3-d-print-limbs-for-amputees/278987/)
3D printer

3D-Printed Medical Devices Spark FDA Evaluation



By Tanya Lewis, Staff Writer
Published: 09/03/2013 09:22 AM EDT on LiveScience
When Kaiba Gionfriddo was just a few months old, a 3D-printed device saved his life.
Kaiba was born with a rare condition called tracheobronchomalacia, which meant his windpipe was weak, and would collapse and prevent air from flowing to his lungs. Researchers at the University of Michigan sought approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a 3D-printed tracheal splint, which they implanted around the baby's airway to help him breathe.
Thanks to 3D printing, a technology that produces objects of any shape, including medical devices highly customized for patients, from a computer model, these kinds of stories are becoming increasingly common. In order to keep up, the FDA is now looking at how it might evaluate medical devices made using 3D printers.
Read the full article at the Huffington Post 
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/03/3d-print-medical-devices-fda_n_3860477.html?utm_hp_ref=tw)
3D printer

Can you 3D print drugs?


Can you 3D print drugs?
The technology exists, and while the hope is to make prescription drug distribution more efficient, there's also a dark side to the novel idea


By Chris Gayomali | June 26, 2013
From the looks of it, 3D printing is about to revolutionize all sorts of industries, from kitchenware (download a design for an ice cube tray off the internet instead of heading to Pier 1 Imports) to dreamier pursuits like the food replicator in Star Trek that we've fantasized about (3D-printed pizza, anyone?). There's the dangerous stuff, too, as Defense Distributed — the libertarian-leaning organization dedicated to disseminating open-source CAD files for 3D-printed handguns and rifles — has demonstrated by thumbing its nose at gun-control laws, irking lawmakers in the process.
Other industries will likely be revolutionized as well, so we might as well ask the hard questions now. How soon until it's possible to 3D print drugs?
Perhaps sooner than you think. Medicine, in particular, was the centerpiece of a recent TED Talk by Lee Cronin, a chemist from the University of Glasgow. Cronin claims to have prototyped a 3D printer capable of assembling chemical compounds on the molecular level. "What Apple did for music," Cronin said, "I'd like to do for the discovery and distribution of prescription drugs."
His process wouldn't be all that different from the way today's clunky 3D printers work, except on a much smaller (and therefore more precise) scale. According to Cronin, users would go to an online drugstore with their digital prescription, buy the "blueprint" and the chemical "ink" they need, and then print the drug at home with software and a 3D molecular printer. Medicine's entire distribution model could, in essence, be flattened.
The advantage, of course, is that the advent of home-printed drugs would open up "the way for personal medicine," Cronin tells Vice. Chemicals and dosages can be tailored to the specific needs of the individual. Allergies and other concerns can be edited out. "In the future, we will not sell drugs, but blueprints or apps," says Cronin.
Read more at The Week 
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3-D Printer Brings Dexterity To Children With No Fingers


3-D Printer Brings Dexterity To Children With No Fingers




















STEVE HENN and CINDY CARPIEN

Richard Van As was working in his home near Johannesburg, South Africa, in May of 2011, when he lost control of his table saw.

"It's a possibility that it was a lack of concentration," he says. "It's just that the inevitable happened."
The carpenter lost two fingers and mangled two more on his right hand. While still in the hospital, he was determined to find a way to get back to work. Eventually, solving his own problem led him to work with a stranger on the other side of the world to create a mechanical hand using a 3-D printer. Other prosthetics, including a lower jaw, have been made with the technology before, but making a hand is particularly tricky.
As soon as he got out of the hospital, Van As began researching prosthetics online. They cost thousands of dollars — money he didn't have.
So in the meantime, he rigged up an artificial index finger for his right hand with materials from his shop. But he kept looking for help or a collaborator — someone who could help him fix his hand.
In time, Van As came across a YouTube video from Ivan Owen. In the video, Owen, a special effects artist and puppeteer in Bellingham, Wash., was demonstrating one of his creations, a big puppet hand that relies on thin steel cables to act like tendons, allowing the metal digits to bend.
"The complexity of the human hand has always fascinated me [and] really captured my imagination," Owen says.
The two began working together long distance — Skyping, sharing ideas, even sending parts back and forth. Finally, Owen flew to South Africa to finish the work in person with Van As. And today, Van As has a working mechanical finger to assist him with his work.
Read the whole story at NPR
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Doctors Replace 75 Percent Of Man's Skull With Implant From 3D Printer



Doctors have used 3D printing technology to replace most of a man's skull.
The groundbreaking surgery occurred last week, when 75 percent of an American patient's skull was replaced with an implant from an Oxford Performance Materials 3D printer. According to the New York Daily News, the Connecticut-based company shapes implants specifically to the anatomy of each patient, who in this case, remains unidentified.
The implant is called the OsteoFab Patient Specific Cranial Device, made from PEKK polymer, which is similar to bone.
During the process of 3D printing, which is also known as additive manufacturing, a digital model becomes a three-dimensional, solid object as multiple layers of material are laid down and shaped, according to UPI.
The technology could revolutionize health care.
"It is our firm belief that the combination of PEKK and Additive Manufacturing ... is a highly transformative and disruptive technology platform that will substantially impact all sectors of the orthopedic industry," Scott DeFelice, President and CEO of Oxford Performance Materials, said in a press release.
The Daily News reported that approximately 300 to 500 patients use the implants monthly. They could potentially aid cancer patients, car accident victims and soldiers, among others.
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Scientists use 3D printer and cartilage cells to create artificial ears




February 21, 2013

When a child is born with the congenital deformity known as microtia, they have an underdeveloped external ear – also known as the pinna. Even though their inner ear may be normal, the lack of the external structure can affect their hearing, plus it looks unusual. Normally, a replacement pinna is made from a foam-like material (or sometimes even cartilage from the rib cage) and implanted under the skin, although these don’t always look particularly natural. Now, scientists from Cornell University have developed a more realistic pinna grown from biological material, using a 3D printer.
The study was led by associate professor of biomedical engineering Lawrence Bonassar, and associate professor of plastic surgery Dr. Jason Spector. Their research team started by creating a 3D digital model of a five year-old girl’s fully-developed external ear, then using a 3D printer to build a mold based on that model.

Collagen harvested from rat tails was combined with cartilage cells gathered from cows’ ears to form a hydrogel, which was then injected into the mold. The collagen served as a scaffolding, upon which the cartilage cells could settle and grow.
“It takes half a day to design the mold, a day or so to print it, 30 minutes to inject the gel, and we can remove the ear 15 minutes later,” said Bonassar. “We trim the ear and then let it culture for several days in nourishing cell culture media before it is implanted.” After three months of being implanted under the back skin of lab rats, newly-grown cartilage had largely replaced the collagen in the ears.
3D printer

Injured bald eagle gets new 3-D printed beak




By Jess Zimmerman
Photo courtesy of Birds of Prey Northwest.
Sometime in 2005, Beauty the bald eagle was shot in the face by a poacher, which damaged her beak badly enough that she couldn’t eat on her own. Animal rescue workers found her before she starved to death, and volunteers at the nonprofit group Birds of Prey Northwest nursed her back to health via tube-feeding and, later, hand-feeding with forceps. But it became increasingly clear that her beak was never going to grow back — meaning that Beauty would never be able to feed herself. She was on track to be euthanized.
But raptor specialist Jane Fink Cantwell, who dresses like Indiana Jones, refused to take “dead bald eagle” for an answer. She joined forces with mechanical engineer Nate Calvin of Kinetic Engineering Group, and together with other scientists, engineers, and even a dentist, they designed a nylon polymer beak that would perfectly replace Beauty’s lost upper mandible.
Calvin developed the new beak using a 3-D modeling program, then used a 3-D printer to fabricate it. After an arduous procedure to attach her prosthetic, Beauty was able to eat, drink, and preen herself on her own.
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